Knowledge
by MJFastlane
Summary: Metroplex knows Time. But he knows Slingshot better. Contains slash, if you think it's applicable in this fandom.


More fic I had up on lj and finally decided to post over here. I guess it's G1ish in verse, but meh. It's pretty strange, so you can interpret it however you wish. It was written for the comm cityjet, therefore it contains Slingshot/Metroplex, and thus slash if such a term is applicable to giant alien robots. Consider yourself warned.

Just beware the abuse of the word and concept of time, for it is rampant in this. I am very good at rampant word abuse, yes indeed.

Transformers belong to Hasbro/Takara, and I make no money off of this work.

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_Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back. _  
Harvey MacKay

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Metroplex knows Time.

Time is the irresistible force, and he knows that the irresistible force is far more powerful than the immovable object. Once there used to be many immovable objects upon Cybertron – or at least, he saw the cities as immortal, and it was enough for his juvenile processor to see the two as interchangeable. Now, there are none. The only cities left are broken, dead shells whose towers crumble into the void as Time passes them by.

Metroplex knows so very much about Time. He knows that no matter how much you have, it is never enough; especially should you waste it. He knows this war is a waste, and is willing to bet everything he is and ever has been that Time will somehow find a way to make them regret that. It always does.

He knows that Time is the most precious commodity in the universe, and he is confident that it is the one commodity that no one will ever find a way to trade in, even if there are so very many ways to make money off of it. But that is not a matter of making more or less time; it is accepting what there is and rationing it as carefully as a city under siege. Time is not answerable to anyone other than itself – a lesson he has learned, and the intricacies of which he shall never cease to learn.

Metroplex thinks he knows enough now – has lived enough, seen enough, experienced enough – to say with some certainty that he has wasted so much time in his past. He hopes he will one day be wise enough not to waste what unknowable amount he has left.  
As it stands now though, Time is not a worry to him. Yes, he is old; some might say ancient and wise, and everything else that goes along with that, though he does not necessarily agree. He has lived for a while, yes, but is reasonably sure he has a while left to live still. And Slingshot is young – but not stupid; just foolish and overconfident and everything that goes along with that – but that is half the attraction of his little lover, knowing that his worldview is so very much different to Metroplex's own.

And right now, this is what Metroplex has time for – he would say makes time for, but he knows Time well enough to know that nobody makes time, outside of Time itself. So it is that he has time for Slingshot; as much time as the jet needs, and then perhaps some more. Because Metroplex knows Time, and he knows that in this life there is no such thing as too much time, unless you are young; and that there is only too little time once you are old. He has time for Slingshot, and Slingshot has time for him, and they are happy together.

Whether this will last, he is not to say. Oh, he can hope, but he knows that Time is not something anyone will ever understand or predict. He can say he knows something about it, but he accepts he will never understand. And if Slingshot or he should be gone in the everdark of the unknown tomorrow, then Metroplex believes that he can be, if not content, eventually accepting that he has not misused the time they had together, and that is enough to make him delight in what time they have now.  
_  
"Metroplex?"_

The city looks down indulgently upon his jet, using all of his not inconsiderable resources. He soon decides that the view through Six-Gun's optical sensors is infinitely preferable to the poor-quality security camera feeds, and he rouses the other part of himself to answer Slingshot's query.

"Yes?" Six-Gun says, and Slingshot is slightly thrown off by the use of the extension of himself. Metroplex indulges in a private chuckle, knowing it probably isn't fair to tease his lover so. Still, he files away the reaction as something to explore at a later time, and returns this particular facet of his attention to Slingshot.

"What are you thinking about?" He was not expecting that, and Six-Gun is silent a moment longer than usual before he answers.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he says, but Slingshot looks suspicious. "Why do you ask?"

"You're not telling me something," the other insists. It is perhaps the closest he has ever come to accusing the city or any of his drones of lying, but Metroplex is not offended, if only because he knows he is concealing something from his lover.

"I don't think you need the details," Six-Gun says.

_"It's nothing I am not always aware of,"_ Metroplex adds through the radio, not using his drone as a go-between this time. _"Unless you really are interested in the feed from three thousand security cameras, the state of my doors on E-deck, or exactly how much I enjoy looking at you."_ Slingshot's optics flicker at that, and Metroplex is satisfied he has successfully dissuaded his jet from any further questions.

"Well, when you put it like that," Slingshot purrs. "What was that last one again?"

Six-Gun is slow again to react, but this time it is deliberate and not out of any sense of confusion. As engines start running high and the little room is filled with the jet's moans – Metroplex's favourite music, as it were – the city retreats, excepting the tendril of awareness that is Six-Gun. Beyond the room full of pleasure, held in this moment somehow out of time, the tendrils that fuel Scamper and Slammer trundle about, busy in the countless tasks that are required to keep the city maintained and in good working order.

Metroplex knows Time, but he also knows that he has been given a precious gift from this most capricious of forces, and he treasures it for what it is. For better or worse, in this moment he has Slingshot, and Slingshot has him. And he knows that Time never steals away that which it gives, unless its gift is wasted.

Metroplex knows Time, but he knows his Slingshot better. And he rests content in his knowledge.

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Reviews are nice. Con-crit is nicer. Making it to here wins you all sorts of meaningless points.


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